Standing in the renovated hayloft on the ranch where his dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather worked all their lives, Robbie watches snow tumble down through the large window on the south wall. “You were right this time, Dad.”

The sky is so cloud-dense, it looks like a single roll of cotton, promising knee-deep snow by sunset. Robbie finishes washing his hands and turns off the tap, casting an automatic frown down into the sink, where he still needs to install a drain. Anywhere he looks in the apartment, he sees something on his to-do list—caulking the countertop, installing the drawer-pulls, grouting the tile around the wood stove. He keeps the list even though he hasn’t checked anything off of it since Johnny moved out.

He looks out the window again. So far, the snow is just a picturesque dusting on the stone buildings and row of evergreens north of the barnyard, but by tomorrow afternoon, the whole ranch will be buried.

Robbie finishes his coffee and tosses the dregs in the sink. By the door, he shrugs into his heavy duster coat and winter boots, takes a black felt hat from its peg, and heads out. This might be his last chance to get anything done for a few days, and there’s always plenty that needs doing. In particular, he has to make sure the horses have enough feed if he isn’t able to get to them for a while.

He still keeps four saddle horses, which is two too many, but he has yet to fully accept that Johnny is gone and shows no signs of ever coming back. Instead, Robbie throws twice as much hay and shovels twice as much crap as he should so that Johnny’s two bay geldings, who Robbie has always just called “the clones,” can stand around and look good. With them in the pipe corral is Dusty, Robbie’s old palomino mare, who’s enjoying semi-retirement. And then there’s Poco, the big black gelding who Robbie rides almost every day.

The other horses are standing in the shed, not a single snowflake clinging to them, but Poco is camped out by the hay feeder, coated in snow and completely unbothered by it. He turns his white-blazed face toward Robbie when he hears him come outside, then nickers a greeting. When he sees that Robbie is headed toward the gate, he hurries to meet him. His hooves crunch through snow and freezing mud on his way.

“You’re a workaholic,” Robbie observes, adjusting his hat on his head and grabbing the halter off the gate.

Riverside Ranch has been in Robbie’s family for six generations. Until the fire last year, the sprawling white farmhouse his ancestors built stood at the center of the outbuildings. Robbie tries not to look at the empty place in the scene where it used to be. The limestone barns, sheds, and the old chicken coop are all that’s left of the original farmstead now. To the northeast are two more modern structures for equipment and feed—an old silver-metal Quonset and the newer, hulking rectangle of the tractor shed, both erected in the 1980s by Robbie’s dad.